


Signs and Portents.

by Tammany



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Gen, God's Signs, Love, M/M, what next
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-10 12:36:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19905826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: In which Aziraphale decides it is time to move things along a bit; in which Crowley panics; and in which God has an idea or two of her own.Signs.Love.





	Signs and Portents.

Aziraphale could go to church, of course, and without the drawback of dancing, except in certain Pentacostal churches that placed a priority on being moved by the spirit. He seldom did, however. In theory anything he wanted God to hear, She heard…the problem being the opposite. Mortals themselves couldn’t find reliable places to think their naughtier thoughts without the Divine taking a quick peek if she felt like it. For angels it was worse: in theory, at least, no matter where their spiritual or corporate bodies resided, in actual truth they were always and forever in the Presence of the Lord, and their minds and hearts were Open to the Spirit. Which, Aziraphale argued, made mandatory Sunday attendance redundant. He occasionally attended a church with a good choir. More rarely one with a renowned preacher. For the most part, though, he spent Sunday mornings in, napping, as he quite liked the lazy sensation, and the slow rise to consciousness, and the cup of tea and the slice of toast afterward.

He did, however, have the Circle—the same Circle he and Witchfinder Sergeant Shadwell had bickered over, prior to the exciting events of Tadfield. The Circle in theory served to suggest to God a certain dead-sober “I’m not just kidding around here” attitude toward prayer. In fact?

“If you’re only going to get Metatron,” Aziraphale argued later, when telling Crowley the whole sad story, “why bother? I can talk to sales promoters who are more likely to meet my needs!”

Suffice it to say that Aziraphale was not convinced of Metatron’s argument that a word to him was the same thing as a word to God Herself.

“But, then, I’ve always been a bit muzzy about the Trinity, too,” he admitted, forlornly. “Every time I think I’ve got a grip, someone comes along to assure me it’s nothing of the sort.”

“Thought it was shamrocks,” Crowley said. “Or is that just leprechauns?”

“Both. Different contexts, my dear. Entirely different contexts.”

“Ah,” Crowley said, then shrugged and grinned his wicked, devil-may-care grin. “Not anything I have to worry about, is it? Important thing is any of ‘em can zap the likes of me. I stay out of their way. Me, I don’t know why you bother.”

“No. I daresay you don’t,” Aziraphale agreed, a bit sullenly. “After all, it’s not like you’re going to make a complete muggins of yourself praying that She show Mercy and Compassion upon Her Creation, is it?”

“Never. No. Some demons, maybe. But not Anthony J. Crowley.” There was an odd, devious edge to his voice, though, and Aziraphale considered asking a few clever follow up questions. His mind, though, was on other aspects of his beloved demon, and he missed his cue…

He was, instead, worried about what to do about the two of them. “US,” as he generally thought of it—a complicated thought with audio narration and exceedingly ornate old-school calligraphy and illumination. It seemed odd that one word had come to be so very Book of Kells in his mind…  
  
“What are we going to do about US?” he asked himself, over and over, in the days after the Apocalapse. It was shorthand for a monolog that could—and often did—go on for hours, starting with, “Oh, Lord, my God, I’m sorry, but I’m in love with a demon. A very nice demon—I think you’d like him—do like him? I know you’ve met him. I mean, he’s one of the Fallen, and one assumes. Well. One assumes you’ve met all of us, actually. But in any case, it’s the demon Crowley. He started out in Eden as Crawly. The Serpent. I know, I know, but really, God, he’s a darling boy. Much kinder than some of the UnFallen, if you must know. A bit of a skeptic, of course—intellectual questioning goes with the entire package, though, and it’s not like you couldn’t make him a patron of the Jesuits or something heavy on doubt and so on. The thing is… Oh, bother. Really. I’m in love with him. Madly, stupidly, permanently in love. And no—I don’t need to just think about it some more. I’ve had six thousand years to think about it. I love him…the good bits. The wicked bits. And I don’t know what to do about it. I know what Gabriel and Michael and Uriel and Sandalphon think. But—God, all apologies, I grovel before the Throne and all, but I’m not sure I trust them any more. I’m not sure what I trust. Except…You made a good creation, God. It’s amazing. And you filled it with all kinds of sub-creators, who keep making it even more amazing. Layer after layer of wonderful things, all the way down into quantum. Fractal beauty, infinity spawning infinity, all of it too good to go blowing up just to fulfill scripture. And I’ve studied scripture, God. And prophecy. And none of it is worth ten seconds in the life of this place you’ve created, among all the beings you’ve birthed.

“Including my demon. God…If there’s another war brewing—if you’re going to do Armageddon again—please. Save him?”

Then he would sit very, very quietly by the Circle, trying to hear a whisper of God Herself, without waking the annoying Metatron.

Before closing the link and blowing out all the candles, he would sigh, and say, “A sign? Just one sign? Something to convince me you’re not going to let them wash him out of creation with Holy Water? Of blast him with Divine Light? I know we’ve had six thousand years together. But—I want so much more. And I’m afraid to do anything about it if you’re just—hovering up there, in smiting mood, ready to prove you really are an iron.” And then, in the dark of the room after the last of the candles were out, and no sign had appeared to him, he’d whisper, “Bugger. Then I’m just going to have to do it anyway.”

By which he meant, it was time to court his demon. Not for himself, though he had found himself terrifyingly, well—fond lately. A dark, treacly sweetness that haunted his spirit being every time he thought of Crowley, or saw him. A longing.

But it was for Crowley he simply had to move. Especially with no signs and no security and good odds that Satan would make another try at Amageddon sooner rather than later.

It was something that had come over him, over the millennia, and grown ever more deep and sure: the sense of compassion for his demon.

Crowley was, of course, cool. He was clever and sly: a trickster of the Old Order. He was proud, and wary, and he defended himself against all the world—even against Aziraphale.

Maybe especially against me, Aziraphale thought, with a wistful little smile. His demon, too cool to admit vulnerability. Too aware of his Fallen status to risk words like “love,” and “hope,” or to confess he cared what anyone thought of him: not God, not Heaven, and not even Aziraphale.

But Aziraphale was an ancient Principality. And he’d made a study of his demon.

Crowley lived to dark rock lyrics. Crowley grudgingly endured within the ring of the damned. Crowley survived.

But—Crowley asked for holy water—and even recent events failed to convince Aziraphale that the demon’s original plan had been weapons development. Crowley hid grief behind sarcasm. He hid love behind tantrums and demands. He hid longing behind outright denials. His lean, sculpted face, so seldom still, flickered with laughter and clever glances, pulled sardonic faces, melted with moments of affection—but when still, Crowley mourned. And mourned. And mourned.

“Come to bed with me, Crowley,” Aziraphale said that night, when they met in the bandstand to catch up with the week’s doings.

“Too early. Let’s party some more.”

Aziraphale could see him veer away, shy, possibly not even convinced he’d heard what Aziraphale had actually said. The angel gripped his demon’s wrist. “Crowley? Tonight. Come to bed. With me.”

Crowley stopped, but refused to look Aziraphale in the eye. “Don’t want you to get cooties, Angel. Never know when Heaven’s looking.”

“I don’t answer to Heaven anymore,” Aziraphale said, quietly. He didn’t admit he still prayed to God… “Come to bed. With me. Tonight. I…love you.”

The look Crowley gave him was like a horse meeting an elephant for the first time: terror. Pure terror.

“Ahhhh, shut it, angel. I mean—I’ll do in a pinch. Might be good for lunch, sometime. But you’re an angel. And I’m a demon. And that’s all, She Wrote.”

“That’s all we’ve seen—and we have no idea what important things She hasn’t written. Come with me, love.”

“And what? Get married?” Crowley gave a sarky, mocking giggle of girlish laughter, and lept into motion, pulling his arm away from the angel’s grip. “Ooooh, I can see it now! St. James service. Me in white. Flowers everywhere. _Everyone_ will be there. Prince Charles can be best man. No—no, Wills. Benedict Cumberbatch will read the lesson. Emma Thompson will take care of the reception after. Dreamy, Angel—it will be dreamy.” Then he came full stop, sputtering, eyes burning fire. “Not. No church. No wedding. No ‘happily ever after,’ not in the face of eternity-or-bust, where ‘bust’ means if you get it wrong God tosses you into the pit with the rest of us Fallen. Or worse, exes us out of reality entirely, until we never were. Not doin’ it, angel. This may be a crazy world—but I like it better with my Angel in it.”

Aziraphale’s heart sang—his demon loved him. He fought back a tear—his demon was afraid for him. Protecting him.

“I didn’t say ‘let’s get married.’ I said come to bed with me, my old dear. Teach me to make love to you.”

Crowley gave a sound like glass breaking. Like a heart breaking. “Crap. Bloody hell. Stop it, Angel. Just—bugger it all. I’m out of here.” He ducked his head, so that both glasses and the angle of his face barred his eyes from Aziraphale’s study. He sloped toward the door, hands deep in his pockets.

“Crowley…” Aziraphale said, fond and reproving. “You’re the one who invited me to Alpha Centuri. How is this different?”

“You can go to Alpha Centuri without getting naked with the Fallen,” Crowley snapped. “I could…” he stopped, painfully not-crying. Arms crossed. Head down. Jaw set. “You’d have been safe. That’s all I needed.”

“You loved me. You still love me.”

“I do not!”

Aziraphale laughed, softly, and quoted back his demon’s own words. “You dooo!” He crossed the space under the bandstand, and stood beside his demon. “You really do, you know,” he said, softly.

“Don’t.” But the expression on the demon’s face was crooked and tender and lost. “Damn you. No. Don’t damn you—and don’t make me damn you. I understand, now, angel. I understand why you didn’t want to give me the holy water. All right? I get it. Don’t make me do the same—don’t make me trip you up so you Fall. Don’t make my choice be why God unmakes you. I can’t…” he wavered, and his lower lip wobbled, at odds with his sharp, cleft chin.

“Shhhh.” Aziraphale closed in, stretched, placed a kiss high on Crowley’s cheek, then another by his ear, and then, slowly, gently, took his mouth. “If She hasn’t damned me for everything else, she’s not going to damn me for this,” he said. “And if she does? What am I going to do, my dear boy? Live eternity afraid to do what I believe is right, for fear of what she does to me? She gave me a brain, and a heart, and compassion, and I appear to have a sense of right and wrong—as have you. If she doesn’t want me to use all that on my own—well. I doubt I’ll manage another millennia without being unmade in any case, my dear. Let me spend the time with you?”

He could feel the demon push away. Then slim fingers grabbed his lapels, pulled him close, and he was in the heart of hellfire, the center of a whirlwind. Crowley’s tongue was down his throat. His hands were grabbing tight, locked in the small of his back. He was crying as he kissed his angel. Aziraphale could feel the spirit wings at Crowley’s back flutter helplessly, like a bird caught in netting.

They didn’t make it far—to a hidden thicket miracled into the cover of a hedge of shrubbery, and further miracled to keep the passers-bye from seeing or hearing anything unseemly.

Crowley, Aziraphale’s demon, drank their love down like rich loam soaks up rain. He was wild with it, leaving Aziraphale to slow them, steady them, make choices because, really, human sex was complicated enough without attempting all the possibilities at once. Crowley flung himself into orgasms. Aziraphale clung tight and rode the demon through more than one of his own. In the aftermath, when at last Crowley calmed, he looked heavenward, and remembered what it was like to make stars.

In the early dawn, while Aziraphale slept, the demon rose and stood naked as Eve in the Garden, feet in the dewy grass. He looked at the glory of skies—pale silver flushed with peach, shading to midnight still at the far horizon. The moon swung high, a shining globe. The stars, faint, spangled the morning.

He remembered God’s handiwork.

He closed his eyes and clasped his hands. “Please. I know you’ll test us. But—not to destruction? And even if you must destroy me—not him? He’s a miracle, God. As perfect and crazy and strange as anything else you’ve ever made. Please, save him?” He gave a crooked grin. “At the very least, save him to the cloud so you can bring him back when it’s time. Just save him.”

The morning was filled with bird song.

“A sign?” the demon whispered. “I’ll—I’ll do whatever he wants, if I know you’ll take care of him. Just—a sign?”

He heard a small, exasperated huff, and small hands grabbed his shoulders. “To think I could have made you smart,” a voice said, and turned him to where the angel lay sleeping. “What kind of sign do you need, idiot? God’s own Angel Aziraphale, Principality, Angel of the Eastern Wall, Giver of the Flaming Sword, Guider of the Outcast, Aziraphale, set over Earth to guard my creation exactly as he guarded Eden, has fallen in love with a the serpent himself, and together they have survived the first Apocalypse unharmed and victorious. How much more sign do you screaming idiots need? Do I have to turn _all_ your music to Queen before it occurs to you the game is rigged in your favor?”

And then she was gone.

Crowley smiled.

Of course, he cried a bit, too. And spent a half-an-hour on stilted, but painfully sincere thank-you prayers.

But then he returned to his lover’s side, and fell asleep, and come noon two naked, sweaty, and grubby Celestial bodies had to spend yet another miracle to get home without being arrested for indecent exposure.

It was a miracle well-spent. But there is a theory all God’s miracles are well-spent, and only petty Heavenly bookkeepers presume to judge them frivolous.


End file.
